The escalating threat of violence is only strengthening the mainstream commitment to peaceful democracy

THE killing by dissident republicans of a Catholic police recruit earlier this month cast a shadow over the elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly on May 5th. It was deepened by the threat on April 25th by masked members of another splinter group, the Real IRA, to kill still more policemen. But reactions to both events showed the determination of Catholics and Protestants alike to keep their province on the path of peaceful self-government. Constable Ronan Kerr's funeral was conspicuously attended by prominent figures from both communities. And a Londonderry priest, Father Michael Canny, offered to try to convince the Real IRA of the error of its bomb-planting ways.

Politics in Northern Ireland is still largely an extension of the peace process in train since 1998, though bread-and-butter issues are beginning to play a bigger role. As May 5th looms, with its local and provincial elections and referendum on electoral reform, elsewhere in the United Kingdom the Conservatives, their Liberal Democrat partners, Labour and others are trying to wrestle each other to the ground. In Northern Ireland these parties have no sway: the question is whether Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) will continue to suck support from their smaller rivals and whether, just possibly, Sinn Fein might sneak ahead of the DUP, making Martin McGuinness (pictured left) first minister in place of the DUP's Peter Robinson (pictured right).

Five parties have ministers in the ruling executive, their numbers determined by how well each party did in the latest election. Members of the Legislative Assembly are chosen by a system of proportional representation. The government is likely to be returned unchanged, though the once-mighty Ulster Unionists could face losses. Most observers expect the DUP to consolidate its position as the primary voice of Protestant Ulster, and Sinn Fein to make gains too: the party did well in recent elections in the Irish Republic.

Such an outcome would accentuate the extraordinary new alliance between the DUP and Sinn Fein. The two still stand for polar opposites, the first for the union with Britain and the second for an eventual united Ireland. In the here and now, however, they govern as a team that the Tories and Lib Dems in Westminster might envy—so closely, in fact, that other parties complain that they have established what almost amounts to a two-party administration.

Earlier this year the two overruled other parties and agreed on a cost-cutting budget, one of many instances in which, in a manner new to Belfast, they have reached compromise arrangements. When they diverge they generally agree to differ, putting off difficult decisions in a way that critics say amounts to dodging the issues.

Yet if they are failing to tackle deep-seated problems across the province, such as segregation in housing and education, they are leading by example: their political co-operation has gone hand in hand with remarkably improved personal relations. Mr Robinson and Mr McGuinness now describe each other as friends, exchanging bantering text messages. When Mr Robinson attended Constable Kerr's funeral it was the first time he had been to a Catholic mass. A few days later, Mr McGuinness attended the funeral of Mr Robinson's mother-in-law, the first time he had been inside a fundamentalist Free Presbyterian church.

Public life in Northern Ireland has long been a bitter business, but now the DUP and Sinn Fein behave towards each other with something approaching chivalry. Even during the campaign they have stuck to an unwritten code, freely expressing differences but carefully avoiding any escalation into serious conflict.

The new politics of pragmatism will be put to the test if, as is not impossible, Sinn Fein wins enough assembly seats to put Mr McGuinness within reach of becoming first minister. But for the moment the two big parties are concentrating on attacking their rivals rather than each other. So far this has produced a low-key campaign which, by its very dullness, conveys that normal politics are taking root.